Heath

Posts by Heath

So my friend Dudemac wrote this article about the onslaught of various “Rate My” sites. (BTW, that site wanted a new slogan, so they’re adopting the one I came up with for them; “eyejabber.com. Sucking your life away – one byte at a time”)
This has given me the following idea:
www.ratemyratemysite.com
I want to make a site where you rate the various “Rate My” sites. Why? Because I find it extremely amusing, and was quite pleased with myself for coming up with the idea. However I’m really lazy and it probably won’t happen so someone else should do it and give me the credit. I’m a great “idea man”. Just need someone else to implement them.

So I’ve been reading a bunch of people’s online diaries lately, and it just reminded me of how I really wanted to make frequent posts on my website, but couldn’t be bothered because it was a pain in my ass. I had to manually update the web page, and the thought of any kind of archives made my head hurt. I would have to make a separate archive index page with links to each individual archive, and then manually make each month’s individual archive page etc.
Thus these free online diaries seemed appealing because all the work is done for you. You type it in and, POOF, it’s on your diary page. I really wanted to have my random thoughts page be on my own website though, and be consistent with my background, fonts, and so on. I had heard much praise about www.blogger.com, so I decided to check it out. Now up until today, I had thought they were just an online diary like the others I had seen, but to day I found that they could also provide exactly what I was looking for. You can set up your blog to automatically publish your entries to your own website, and automatically maintain archives. To get it exactly the way you want it does take a good bit of tinkering (well it does for someone like me anyway, who knows very little about HTML.) It took me from about 9am this morning until about 2pm to finally get everything working and configured exactly how I wanted it (again probably due to my extremely limited knowledge), however I now have pretty much exactly what I was looking for; an easy way to just type a post and click enter, and have it added to my own website and update the archives.
In short, I LOVE BLOG! Now I’m sure I’ll find it’s not perfect, but it’s the damn coolest thing I’ve seen yet for anyone wanting to maintain a diary, or post random rants, raves, and thoughts on their own website. Even if you don’t have your own website, you can still keep a public blog on www.blogger.com. Time will tell how I like the layout compared to some other sites, but for the moment, I’m quite filled with geeky joy.

So we’ve decided to try and get married at the Texas Renaissance Festival on November 3 2002. This all depends on her gettong her visa to enter the country, and if her family can make it. We’ll keep you updated!

So I am now back in the US, or as I call it, Jesslessland. Twas wonderful as always, and here’s my meager recollections…
This trip was a bit more casual. We just kind of took it easy, as opposed to my last trip when we were running around like crazy the whole time I was there.
As usual I couldn’t sleep on the plane trip to London, so I watched K-Pax on the plane, and then pulled out my laptop to watch a DVD on it. Twas a nice plane, with the cool screens on the back of each headrest with many channels of movies, and programs to watch, and a bunch of music stations too. There was no one in the seat next to mine which is always nice so you can use that foot room to store stuff and stretch out. the plane arrived in London, then I had a 2 hour layover before my connection to Plymouth (2 hours is quite painful when you’re actually in the same country as your fiancee and yet have to just sit and wait for your next plane). A quick one hour plane ride later and I arrived in Plymouth on a tiny 2 propellor plane. I was greeted by Jess and her parents (who were visiting). I had told them before I came over that we could go ahead and go out and do stuff that day even though I would be tired from the flight. It was 10am in Plymouth, but 4am to my body, so I was indeed exhausted. We decided to go to Lanhydroc, a really cool old victorian estate. I spent much of the car ride laying on Jess exhausted, and a bit car sick. This was my first experience with teeny tiny, super windy english country roads. It was an experience.
We got to Lanhydroc, and it was way cool, although Jess and I laughed at the idea of the lord and lady of the house having seperate bedrooms. Fools! It was pretty much an all day affair, then we drove back to Plymouth, went out to dinner, and then [fast forward]at some point later, I collapsed in an exhausted heap in Jess’s bed.
The next day we went to The Eden Project. I’ll let you read about it at the link, but suffice to say it was also way cool. Back at home, we got some dinner, and heard that the queen mother had died. Apparently Jess and I can’t visit without some major even happening. She comes here, terrorists attack, I go there, the queen mother dies.
The next day her parents left, and we just spent the day alone at home and enjoying it.
Monday Dumur came home from being out of town, and at last I met the infamous mUrt (a.k.a. Dumur, a.k.a. Martin). He was every bit as cool as I knew he would be and we became fast friends.
Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty casual, and just easy going hanging out. We walked into town to get some things for a dinner party we were having thursday night. Jess lives on a viciously steep hill. Just walking to the top of the hill wears you out, much less on into town, however it was fun to see where she lived. Also throughout the week we watched Dumur play Jedi Knight II quite a bit which was fun and spawned many a joke. [wookie feet]
Thursday we had a dinner party with me, Jess, Dumur, and 3 of their friends. It was quite fun, although Jess was panicking and cooking like a whirlwind. Due to technical difficulties with the lasagna sheets, she ended up completely ditching the original dish and making a completely original concoction dubbed by me as “Jessagna”. Dinner was great, and then we had a wonderful time just sitting around and talking.
Saturday Del arrived! Yay! We all went out to dinner and then to a Jazz Cafe. It was 15.99 tons of fun between the 4 of us. Sunday, Del had to go . However we packed as much fun as possible into her time with us.
The rest of my time was spent just being with Jess, watching movies, socializing, etc.
Monday night very little sleep was had before our taxi to the airport for my 6:45am flight from Plymouth. Tears were shed, lips were kissed, and then I was torn from the arms of my love to start my journey back. I slept for almost the entire flight from London to Houston (and again there was no one in the seat right next to me, yay!), which was good. I then spent the requisite huge amount of time in the airport going through the lines, getting luggage etc. I drove the 2 hours back home. When all was said and done it was 17 hours from my flight leaving plymouth until I walked into my apartment.
I, of course, immediately got on the phone with Jess, and talked until she went to bed.
We now are in the last period of being apart that we will ever have to endure. In august she comes over here and we get married soon after. Since we have to get married within 90 days of her coming here we’re planning on having just a small little thing, and then having a bigger planned thing the next year. For our initial small little fun wedding we’re now leaning towards getting married at the renaissance festival near here sometime between September and November. Fun! Who wants to come to Texas?